Confidence and Success
At Being Best we believe that confidence and success go hand in hand. We are mindful to take every opportunity to help our students to grow in confidence and self-awareness and also to see and understand the connection between confidence and success.
Likewise, for those who’ve lost their confidence, it’s important to understand how that came about and why.
In an interview with Sarah Montague (13 August 2014) - The Educators - Sir Ken Robinson talks about his experience at school and states that “teachers can turn your life around.” He talks about an inspirational teacher called Miss York who coached him in the 11+ after he was singled out as talented by a school visitor (at the time the Special Educational Needs Inspector for Merseyside). The experience with Miss York had a profoundly positive impact on Sir Ken and made an enormous difference to his confidence and future prospects.
Sir Ken states that the opposite can also be true. To illustrates this, he tells a story about singing lessons. It stuck in my mind because I had exactly the same experience at my primary school in Hammersmith with exactly the same outcome. Sir Ken talks about the Deputy Head of his school lining up the students and walking up and down the line, leaning in carefully to hear their singing voices. On one of these occasions, this Deputy Head told Sir Ken he was “flat” and he describes becoming so inhibited by this experience that he started to mime and wouldn’t sing for years.
It’s amazing the impact that others can have on our perceptions of ourselves, especially when we are young and impressionable.
